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The Jackie Pritzen Fund

The Jackie Pritzen Fund, a portion of the endowment of Five Colleges,

Incorporated, was established in November 2013 to honor the memory of Jackie Pritzen who served as the first full-time assistant to the Five College Coordinator for academic programs from 1969-1995, retiring as Associate Five College Coordinator for Academic Program Planning. The Pritzen Fund was launched by a very generous gift from Jacqueline R. Slater, who was in the first class of students entering Hampshire College in 1970, and who subsequently worked with and became a good friend of both Jackie Pritzen and the first full-time Five College Coordinator North Burn. Jacki Slater was one of the first post-baccalaureate "Five College Fellows" after her graduation from Hampshire. The Fund has grown with the contributions of others who want to ensure Jackie’s legacy of support for Five College academic programs.

Five Colleges has already received fifty-five contributions to The Jackie Pritzen Fund totaling over $167,000. Two of the gifts to the Pritzen Fund are also in honor of North Burn, the first full-time Five College Coordinator; and one gift is also in honor of Jacki Slater. Over half of the seventeen Jackie Pritzen Lecturers have contributed to the Pritzen Fund as have a number of those who served as Five College Fellows in the 1960s and 1970s, in addition to Jacki Slater. You may add your contribution to The Jackie Pritzen Fund endowment here: Contribute to The Jackie Pritzen Fund. All donors whose gifts were received by June 30, 2014 are listed as Founding Donors to the Fund.

Who was Jackie Pritzen?

Jackie Pritzen played a leading role in creating and sustaining many currently vibrant Five College academic collaborations, from faculty seminars and the Five College departments (in astronomy and dance) to student cross-registration and the Five College buses. She helped nurture numerous interdisciplinary collaborations, area studies programs, faculty development activities, and the first ten Five College certificate programs. She served as liaison to a wide range of academic committees and programs, including the African Studies Council, American Indian Studies, the Center for East Asian Studies, Coastal and Marine Sciences, East Asian Languages, and the Latin American Studies Council. She served with each of the first four (of five) chief executives of the consortium.

Jackie did her undergraduate work at the University of Oregon and pursued graduate studies in English at Yale University and Cambridge Unviersity (suppoted by both Fulbright and AAUW Fellowships).

Upon her retirement, the Five College Deans established the Jackie Pritzen Lecture, a public lecture given annually by a faculty member selected by the Deans for outstanding teaching and scholarship and service to Five College collaboration. A list of professors selected to present at the annual Jackie Pritzen Lecture can be found here.

You can read an article containing Jackie's reflections on her work published in the 1995 issue of Five College Ink here. Her obituary that appeared in the Daily Hampshire Gazette on August 26, 2013 can be found here.

The earnings from The Jackie Pritzen Fund (drawn according to the endowment spending policy of Five Colleges, Incorporated) will be used to support Five College programs which were of long-term interest to Jackie Pritzen during her work at the consortium and thereafter, such as, the annual Pritzen Lecture, certificate programs, interdisciplinary collaborations, faculty development, faculty seminars, area studies, and joint academic departments, majors, and programs.

Those interested in support from The Jackie Pritzen Fund for their Five College collaborative project should contact Executive Director Neal Abraham. Applications for funds will be considered and awards will be made on a rolling basis beginning in Fall 2014.